Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Let Get This Started Again

Spring training is underway. Baseball news is abundant! That mean that Cubs baseball blogging should get going again, right?

Well, we could discuss the Carlos Marmol contract. Good signing. 'Nuff said.

We could review Matt Garza joining the Cubs. Nice, and he'll be here a while. Anything else? Nope.

People have speculated that Alfonso Soriano could be traded to the Rangers for Michael Young. That would be a really exciting prospect, but then you realize that the speculation comes from Phil Rogers. And you ignore it after that.

Albert Pujols speculation is running rampant that he could join the Cubs in 2012 as a free agent. Can the 2012 talk wait until at least the day after Opening Day?

It seems there's not much to discuss with this Cubs team since they finished in fifth place a year ago and Jim Hendry's "three of four solid moves" ended up being only one. If only management would say something about what their expectations were.

Jim Hendry did come out this week and say that they "expect to contend" for the NL Central title. Man, he has to lower expectations so much he can't even say that he expects to win.

What are the Ricketts saying? Well, Tom did grant an interview to a salivating Cubs Game Fan. It was torn to shreds over at Desipio in three parts (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). But Tom did say one interesting thing:

Q: What would you say your goals are now for the next year?

Tom: First and foremost, we want to start wrestling this Wrigley issue to the ground. I think we owe it to everyone to take these issue head on and try to get through them. Obviously, always improving as a team on the field. Looking at ways that we can get better; I think that's something that just never ends. With respect to the in-game experience that's sort of a thing that never ends. Obviously, the Ambassadors, we tried a lot of stuff. We did a lot of surveys for the first time. We're really trying to understand what we can do better in the park on an ongoing basis.

Not one word about winning. Not one. All of it focused on the Wrigley Experience.

Now, let's just hope Tom knew his audience and interviewer and knew just how to suck up to this part of the fan base (the part that buys season tickets win or lose - the kind of fans Tom told his Dad the Cubs had when he got Dad to pony up to buy the team).

But it's been 16 months since the Ricketts bought the team. So far, they've talked bathrooms and bonds. Not baseball.